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i am of the opinion that if you can't take your full retirement draw day 1 while delaying than it likely is not a good idea to delay ss .

so that means having enough in assets to front yourself the money until ss kicks in or you don't have enough in assets to safely delay and it should not be an option if you are going to stop working . .

i see little advantage to living on a reduced budget through what likely are the best years you may have from 62 to fra or until 70 . i know i sure would not do it nor would i recommend anyone does that without a real good reason .

delaying works best when you simply lay out what you are not getting and then once a bigger ss check kicks in you go from living mostly on your money to living on ss money and getting a reduction in what you need to provide from your own money .

i filed at 65 and my wife 62 but i have a bumch of little gigs going on in retirement so i made to much to file earlier .

If I understand you correctly, then to simplify what you said, if one has enough assets that they would not notice a benefit to receiving a social security check at an earlier age, and they would like to have a cushion later in life when they might possibly need it, then they might as well wait to draw at 70 when their check would be around 38.5% greater each year (calculating between taking at age 65 versus waiting until 70)?

Assuming financial solvency of the system up through one's expected lifetime, of course...

If I understand you correctly, then to simplify what you said, if one has enough assets that they would not notice a benefit to receiving a social security check at an earlier age, and they would like to have a cushion later in life when they might possibly need it, then they might as well wait to draw at 70 when their check would be around 38.5% greater each year (calculating between taking at age 65 versus waiting until 70)?

Assuming financial solvency of the system up through one's expected lifetime, of course...

since i am not a fan of delaying ss and waiting all those years to spend more money , i only recommend delaying ss if you are not working if you can take your full draw day 1 .

so in both cases the draw will be about the same but what shifts if you delay ss is the composition of the make up of that income .

so lets take a hypothetical 100k income .

if you take ss early and ss is 25k , you need to draw 75k inflation adjusted forever from your portfolio .

so 75% of your income is portfolio and 25% ss .

if you delay you need to draw all 100k inflation adjusted for 8 years but then a 70% bigger ss check kicks in for life . so know you get 42,500 in ss and need only 58k from your portfolio . so your income shifted from being 75% dependent on your portfolio to only 58% dependent .

that really cuts dependency on markets and rates ......it can also allow a higher spending rate because ss has no sequence risk unlike your portfolio. you need to keep a whole lot of money unspent for poor market conditions

Why is it that the government/state shouldn't be held to its obligations to its employees to honor any pension or whatnot that is due to them, after years and years of service and out-of-pocket contributions? it seems fragile.. and if the federal or state govt mismanages its funds and the retirement programs, it seems they have an "out"...

also, why is it that people have to pay both federal and state taxes, PLUS sales tax... your post-tax earnings are taxed yet again whenever you buy a product.. doesn't seem fair.

Comparing current ages of beneficiaries has nothing to do with when they started.

That's a US News article which in turn cites another US News article as a source.

Note that the Social Security Administration is never cited as a source. That's probably because the Social Security Administration in its entire history has never published the age of beneficiaries by age, nor has it ever published any data regarding the age at which beneficiaries apply for benefits.

It only publishes age groups.

There were 42,921,000 retired workers in April 2018, and 43,024,000 in May 2018, an increase of only 103,000 retirees.

BLS reports the population 60-64 years was 20,455,000 in May 2018 (LNU00000096). Assuming all age cohorts are equal, and they more or less are ± 3%, that's 4,091,000 per age cohort averaging 340,916 for each month of people age 62 years.

103,000 isn't even 30% of the 340,916 people age 62, and it makes the invalid assumption that all applicants were age 62 years and no one of any other age filed for Social Security benefits.

Worse than that, the number of beneficiaries age 65 and older actually increased by 111,000 from April to May 2018.

Most claims that large numbers of people take Social Security at age 62 are actually based on surveys of people who claim they plan on taking Social Security at age 62. Planning and doing are two very different things.

There is a counter argument to the deferred savings thing. I noticed you were in Bermuda recently spending your retirement money. I went to Bermuda at age 31 with my girlfriend. We rode scooters to remote parts of the island and had sex on the beach. I took 2 years off at age 40. I burned up a bunch of frequent flyer miles and skied the world. I skied Squaw the 4th of July and played 18 holes of golf afterwards. I summer skied for a month in New Zealand. Epic powder days at Steamboat, Whistler, Deer Valley & Canyons. I also got to spend a big chunk of a summer with my father before he got dementia. I’ve skied an average of 60 days my whole life. I’ve sailed my boat in some amazing places. I’ve traveled all over the world. If I hadn’t done any of that, I’d easily have 5x my net worth. What’s the point? I’ve lived a great life. I’m not going to be in poverty when I stop working.

There's nothing wrong with that IF you don't end up being in poverty or semi-poverty in old age and being bitter about it. The problem is, a lot of people do some version of what you did and then complain about it and blame everyone and everything else but themselves while they're at it. I have an ex-friend like that. No retirement savings. Took a year or two off to live in Europe when he was in his 20s. Will work to 70 because he has to. He didn't say "Oh well, things haven't worked out the way I wanted but I lived the life I wanted all those years". Nope, he's bitter (but of course, denies that he's bitter).

For others it can be either stop working (either by retiring with a pension or just stop working by choice), live below your means for awhile (if necessary), and then file at Full Retirement Age.

if you have a pension that can carry you through i can see delaying . but depriving yourself by delaying and waiting through some of the best years you may have which are early on in retirement i would seriously question . to me there is no logic to depriving yourself by delaying .

at the end of the day between the checks you did not get , potentially lost spousal benefits , full medicare increases as you are not protected under hold harmless and a hit to your lifestyle really overshadow the check which will really not be all that different once you figure in what it cost you . but hey ,if someone wants to do it , great but it is not something i would ever recommend .

the real value in delaying is really just shifting your income composition from more market dependent and rate dependent to more longevity dependent . in my opinion it should not deprive your lifestyle in any way because the difference is not that great .

even if one in a couple lives to 90 they merely will equal someone who took ss early and did not spend down invested assets in a balanced fund or if they did not need the money ,invested the assets in a balanced fund .

the balances would be the same so there is no logical point to depriving one's self the spending to get to the same point .

a balanced fund and early ss will equal the roi one gets living to 90 with ss

Last edited by mathjak107; 07-04-2018 at 03:21 AM..

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